Re: Aph 18 - Organon 6
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:18 am
Dear John
I wrote:
"To my mind, Hn was an extremely logical man. His system is based on logic and that is why it simple in its essence. [When I drew the Mind-Map of the Organon I was amazed how logically he had set out his life's experiences and teachings.]
It is based on a simple logic that similar cures similar."
When I wrote it is based on a simple logic, I was not saying that Hn used logic to come to this maxim. As we all know it was based on his experiments and observations.
What I meant is that its application is based on this logic / truth etc.
Hence the importance of provings. Once you have the proving, then you can use any substance to hand. What a gift!
Best wishes
Soroush
________________________________
From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 02 August 2009 14:08
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re:Aph 18 - Organon 6
Hi, Soroush --
This, I think, is where principle as logic and principle as generalisation part ways. The concept of, as you say, similar curing similar does not seem to follow any principle known more broadly to biology (unless perhaps something of the kind is involved in the hormetic relationship), chemistry (except in respect of substitution, as in the use of calcium to prevent lead from lodging in bone tissue), or physics. If we were to use logic not based on the very particular observations that Hahnemann pursued, I think we'd conclude, for instance, that symptoms similar to those that arise from an acid's pathogenesis should be cured by an alkali and vice versa -- not by a similarly acting chemical.
From that point of view, it's very difficult to see how Hahnemann could have derived the concept of homoeopathy through logic alone. His starting point for logically concluding something factual had to be factual.
In fact, according to Hahnemann himself, the principle of using like to cure like, Similia similibus curentur, following directly from his generalisation Similia similibus curantur, derived wholly from the steady accumulation of observations of that relationship of symptom similarity in all indubitable cures in his experimental and historical observation. It is not a deductive conclusion based on chemistry but an inductive one based on the observation of many individual relationships.
Although Similia similibus curentur is indeed a wholly rational response to the universality of Similia similibus curantur, the problem with understanding homoeopathy to derive from logic is that even valid logic that begins with a false premise can lead with ease to any conclusion at all, true or false. So it's necessary, in treating homoeopathy as a logically valid outcome, to understand the premises with which that logical process begins.
The particular premise setting in motion the logic underlying homoeopathy is that in all observed cases of indubitable cure, the remedy was homoeopathic to the illness; i.e., the remedy was capable of inducing similar symptoms. Inductively generalising from this, Hahnemann concluded that such an imitative capacity was necessary in the curative relationship.
Once that relationship of conclusion to observed fact becomes clear, it washes away all kinds of confusions as to what can and what cannot constitute a medicine homoeopathic to the patient's illness.
Liz's observations, and those of, apparently, many others, of the use of combinations and the subsequent changes that they regard favourably are a small step in the direction of building up something parallel to the collected pathogeneses of single, simple medicines. Where single, simple medicines have a long head start, though, on combinations is that they are known to have a consistency in primary effects: they do not cause in one person overall aggravation from heat and amelioration by cold and in another the opposite condition. No such consistency can be assumed of mixtures of substances; potencies thereof; or mixtures of the potencies of different substances, all of which are subject to the uncertainties that Hahnemann mentioned in (amongst other places) § 274.
It is partly for this reason that Hahnemann says, in § 20, that the [dynamic] "spirit-like power to alter man's state of health which lies hidden in the inner nature of medicines can in itself never be discovered by us by a mere effort of reason; it is only by experience of the phenomena it displays when acting on the state of health of man that we can become clearly cognizant of it".
The other major point Hahnemann makes through § 20, of course, concerns the necessity of a medicine to have the predictable ability to mimic the patient's symptoms. Of those many tools that have been suggested here as acting homoeopathically, ranging from psychological interventions (including the homoeopathic interview) to the use of music and "homoeopathic remedies" made from water and cardboard in black boxes, only individual potencies (including the zeroth potency) of individual single, simple substances are known to have the capacity to replicate a certain, predefined, state of ill-health upon demand. This is what makes a medicine a medicine: that it will always tend in certain fixed directions in its influence upon health.
These two premises -- the observed nature of single, simple medicines to produce always the one primary set of effects, and the observed capacity of single, simple medicines to remedy an illness mimicking a subset of those effects -- are together the necessary premises for a logic that can lead soundly to an overarching generalisation such as Hahnemann summed up in the law of similars. Without both sets of observations, no logic can lead to the method that is homoeopathy: without both sets of observations, the medicines lose their predictability and become no more useful in the logical practice of medicine than group therapy, retail therapy, or prayer to all the gods. Yes, perhaps there was some benefit -- if benefit be measured in hours, dollars, and confidence -- but as for amplifying that benefit, enlarging it to encompass the patient's entire illness, and making it permanent, there is no hope in methods without predictable primary effects whose relationship to the illness can be applied.
That is what makes Hahnemann's exclusion of all medicinal mixtures from homoeopathy a critical point of delineation between homoeopathy and allopathy. No medicinal mixture has any particularly known pathogenesis -- but that is the lesser weakness in the use of mixtures. The greater weakness is that their entire primary effect upon people has no known consistency. Bryonia's primary pathogenetic symptoms are characteristically worse by motion. Rhus toxicodendron's are by and large characteristically worse by first motion and then better by continued motion. The mixture of the two, despite our long and thorough knowledge of these two characteristics, appears to have neither one nor the other character; yet the picture, unsurprisingly, seems confused. Without a known pattern to the pathogenesis, only allopathy is available as a basis for prescription.
It may be that a high degree of uncertainty is inherent in highly adulterated medicines such as a mixture in comparable proportions of Bry. and Rhus tox. In any case, the unpredictability, as Hahnemann states in § 274 so deftly, of how the relationships between the interacting medicinal substances may play out in any particular pathogenetic trial (or clinical use) will not be resolved, if ever, until after many pathogenetic studies have been done on each of many variations of medicinal mixtures -- if anybody ever bothers with such unnecessary complexity (and there's no sign yet that anybody ever will).
Cheers --
John
2009/8/1 >
________________________________
--
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
- Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397-402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)
I wrote:
"To my mind, Hn was an extremely logical man. His system is based on logic and that is why it simple in its essence. [When I drew the Mind-Map of the Organon I was amazed how logically he had set out his life's experiences and teachings.]
It is based on a simple logic that similar cures similar."
When I wrote it is based on a simple logic, I was not saying that Hn used logic to come to this maxim. As we all know it was based on his experiments and observations.
What I meant is that its application is based on this logic / truth etc.
Hence the importance of provings. Once you have the proving, then you can use any substance to hand. What a gift!
Best wishes
Soroush
________________________________
From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 02 August 2009 14:08
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re:Aph 18 - Organon 6
Hi, Soroush --
This, I think, is where principle as logic and principle as generalisation part ways. The concept of, as you say, similar curing similar does not seem to follow any principle known more broadly to biology (unless perhaps something of the kind is involved in the hormetic relationship), chemistry (except in respect of substitution, as in the use of calcium to prevent lead from lodging in bone tissue), or physics. If we were to use logic not based on the very particular observations that Hahnemann pursued, I think we'd conclude, for instance, that symptoms similar to those that arise from an acid's pathogenesis should be cured by an alkali and vice versa -- not by a similarly acting chemical.
From that point of view, it's very difficult to see how Hahnemann could have derived the concept of homoeopathy through logic alone. His starting point for logically concluding something factual had to be factual.
In fact, according to Hahnemann himself, the principle of using like to cure like, Similia similibus curentur, following directly from his generalisation Similia similibus curantur, derived wholly from the steady accumulation of observations of that relationship of symptom similarity in all indubitable cures in his experimental and historical observation. It is not a deductive conclusion based on chemistry but an inductive one based on the observation of many individual relationships.
Although Similia similibus curentur is indeed a wholly rational response to the universality of Similia similibus curantur, the problem with understanding homoeopathy to derive from logic is that even valid logic that begins with a false premise can lead with ease to any conclusion at all, true or false. So it's necessary, in treating homoeopathy as a logically valid outcome, to understand the premises with which that logical process begins.
The particular premise setting in motion the logic underlying homoeopathy is that in all observed cases of indubitable cure, the remedy was homoeopathic to the illness; i.e., the remedy was capable of inducing similar symptoms. Inductively generalising from this, Hahnemann concluded that such an imitative capacity was necessary in the curative relationship.
Once that relationship of conclusion to observed fact becomes clear, it washes away all kinds of confusions as to what can and what cannot constitute a medicine homoeopathic to the patient's illness.
Liz's observations, and those of, apparently, many others, of the use of combinations and the subsequent changes that they regard favourably are a small step in the direction of building up something parallel to the collected pathogeneses of single, simple medicines. Where single, simple medicines have a long head start, though, on combinations is that they are known to have a consistency in primary effects: they do not cause in one person overall aggravation from heat and amelioration by cold and in another the opposite condition. No such consistency can be assumed of mixtures of substances; potencies thereof; or mixtures of the potencies of different substances, all of which are subject to the uncertainties that Hahnemann mentioned in (amongst other places) § 274.
It is partly for this reason that Hahnemann says, in § 20, that the [dynamic] "spirit-like power to alter man's state of health which lies hidden in the inner nature of medicines can in itself never be discovered by us by a mere effort of reason; it is only by experience of the phenomena it displays when acting on the state of health of man that we can become clearly cognizant of it".
The other major point Hahnemann makes through § 20, of course, concerns the necessity of a medicine to have the predictable ability to mimic the patient's symptoms. Of those many tools that have been suggested here as acting homoeopathically, ranging from psychological interventions (including the homoeopathic interview) to the use of music and "homoeopathic remedies" made from water and cardboard in black boxes, only individual potencies (including the zeroth potency) of individual single, simple substances are known to have the capacity to replicate a certain, predefined, state of ill-health upon demand. This is what makes a medicine a medicine: that it will always tend in certain fixed directions in its influence upon health.
These two premises -- the observed nature of single, simple medicines to produce always the one primary set of effects, and the observed capacity of single, simple medicines to remedy an illness mimicking a subset of those effects -- are together the necessary premises for a logic that can lead soundly to an overarching generalisation such as Hahnemann summed up in the law of similars. Without both sets of observations, no logic can lead to the method that is homoeopathy: without both sets of observations, the medicines lose their predictability and become no more useful in the logical practice of medicine than group therapy, retail therapy, or prayer to all the gods. Yes, perhaps there was some benefit -- if benefit be measured in hours, dollars, and confidence -- but as for amplifying that benefit, enlarging it to encompass the patient's entire illness, and making it permanent, there is no hope in methods without predictable primary effects whose relationship to the illness can be applied.
That is what makes Hahnemann's exclusion of all medicinal mixtures from homoeopathy a critical point of delineation between homoeopathy and allopathy. No medicinal mixture has any particularly known pathogenesis -- but that is the lesser weakness in the use of mixtures. The greater weakness is that their entire primary effect upon people has no known consistency. Bryonia's primary pathogenetic symptoms are characteristically worse by motion. Rhus toxicodendron's are by and large characteristically worse by first motion and then better by continued motion. The mixture of the two, despite our long and thorough knowledge of these two characteristics, appears to have neither one nor the other character; yet the picture, unsurprisingly, seems confused. Without a known pattern to the pathogenesis, only allopathy is available as a basis for prescription.
It may be that a high degree of uncertainty is inherent in highly adulterated medicines such as a mixture in comparable proportions of Bry. and Rhus tox. In any case, the unpredictability, as Hahnemann states in § 274 so deftly, of how the relationships between the interacting medicinal substances may play out in any particular pathogenetic trial (or clinical use) will not be resolved, if ever, until after many pathogenetic studies have been done on each of many variations of medicinal mixtures -- if anybody ever bothers with such unnecessary complexity (and there's no sign yet that anybody ever will).
Cheers --
John
2009/8/1 >
________________________________
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
- Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397-402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)